SPOKANE, Wash.— Washington State University Spokane enrollment reached its highest-ever level for spring semester, with enrollment of 516 full-time equivalent (FTE) students. This is 18 more than the previous high of 498 enrolled in spring 2001, an increase of 3.5 percent.
Bill Gray, campus executive officer and dean at WSU Spokane, says the master’s in technology management, a graduate business degree with 26 FTE, is one reason for the increase as one of the campus’s fastest growing programs. The MTM has drawn a high number of full-time international students, as well as increasing numbers of part-time students who work in the Spokane region at firms such as Potlatch, Premera Blue Cross and Wagstaff Engineering.
Graduate studies in the design disciplines — architecture, interior design, landscape architecture — also continue to post strong numbers. “These programs were just established in the fall of 1998, and we have already had almost 200 FTEs over eight semesters,” Gray said. “Critical mass for graduate studies in the design disciplines has been reached in our Interdisciplinary Design Institute.”
More than a third (37.5 percent) of the campus’s students enroll in programs in the health sciences, including aging, exercise science, health policy and administration, human nutrition, pharmacy, speech-language pathology and audiology. These programs are now housed in the new Health Sciences Building. The 144,000-square-foot building, which includes over 20,000 square feet of lab space, opened for classes this January.
“The new building is a real draw for students eager to work with the latest equipment in a high-end building that is second to none,” Gray says. “Our health sciences cluster can only continue to grow.”
